World War II aviator and nurse Dorothy Ebersbach gives CWRU $2 million for flight nurse program

Case Western Reserve UniversityDorothy Ebersbach served in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An aviator who served in the Women Airforce
Service Pilots during World War II, then spent her career as a nurse,
has donated $2 million to a Case Western Reserve University program that
encompasses both of her passions -- flight nursing.

The Dorothy Ebersbach Academic Center for Flight Nursing will be
established at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, where
Ebersbach earned a nursing degree in 1954. She died last month at 96.
The center will expand the Advanced Practice Flight Nurse Program's
mission of training graduate-level nursing students to provide on-site
care during emergencies and transport to medical facilities.

The program for nurse practitioners is the only one of its kind based
at a U.S. nursing school, officials said. Fourteen students have
graduated and eight are in the program. About 250 flight nurses have
been trained through its summer camp.

The university had planned to transport Ebersbach by air from her
Florida home to Cleveland to announce her gift, said Mary Kerr, dean of
the nursing school.

Ebersbach, a longtime donor to the nursing school, enjoyed discussing
her role in aviation and the school's flight nursing program, Kerr
said.
"Separate elements of her life have merged to continue her legacy of
flight and nursing," said Christopher Manacci, clinical director of the
program. "This will help perpetuate this program for decades."

Ebersbach grew up in Pomeroy, Ohio, and received a bachelor's degree
in education from Ohio University in 1936, according to her obituary and
an oral history she gave in July, 2010.

She worked for her father's construction company in Tampa, Fla., a
job that required her to learn how to fly an airplane. She earned a
commercial pilot's license at the University of Tampa. After the United
States entered World War II, she applied to and was selected to be a
member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP.

According to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, more
than 25,000 women applied for pilot training under the WASP program. Of
these, 1,830 were accepted, 1,074 graduated and 900 were in the program
when it was disbanded in December 1944 as men began returning from the
war.
Ebersbach served in Texas and Arizona, doing test flights and towing
targets for gunnery practice. She wanted to continue flying after the
WASP program ended, but men flooded the market for pilots. So, she chose
another career.

After receiving her nursing degree, she worked in public health
nursing in Hillsborough County, Fla., until her retirement in 1975. She
never married and lived in the house her family moved into in 1935.
WASPs were considered civilians rather than military personnel. But they were granted veteran status in 1977.

In a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in March, 2010, the Congressional
Gold Medal, the highest honor awarded by Congress to a civilian, was
given to all WASPs. Ebersbach received hers at a ceremony in Tampa a
month later.